Need help with this mutation not inherited...

[DonaldDuck]

I have several snow owls as parents, and finally able to stack all the good stats into one female parent. Then I mated this female to a male and a male offspring came out but didn't get the +2 stats. Do I have to keep breeding until : 1. a male, 2. inherit the +2.

 

here's the pool of my R Snow Owls, and the male egg I got, as you can see on the 2nd image (incubator), it is 111, not 113.

The offspring didn't get the +2 stats from the parent even though it says 1 mutation. Do I have to keep breeding until it's a male and inherits the stats so I can get both perfect parents for this 1 mutation ? This mutation happened before I get perfect parents (same stats on both), so it lowers my chance to get the perfect male parent.

Seems like it is better to do stats stacking first until getting 2 perfect male female parents BEFORE mutation, or CMIIW. In this case my Snoll (the male parent) is still a tamed male and not fully have all the good stats, it's making the breeding harder. Maybe I should ditch  this mutated owl and crack all mutated eggs until I have 2 perfect parents first.

It's on unofficial server with higher level wild dinoes.

[WitchesTwex]

https://ark.wiki.gg/wiki/Breeding look at section 'Stats of the Offspring', that will explain Everything! 
Good luck!

[Dreadcthulhu]

First off, the whole "perfect pair" method is a holdover from the days of mass hatching with AC units; it made it easy to spot new mutations since babies with new mutations would be the fathers level +2, and you would only have to check those.  Now that you can check egg stats with an incubator directly, there is no real need to create a "perfect pair" before mutating, its a waste of time, imho. 

What I do is stack the stats I want to mutate first, then I worry about combining them. First I find the best starting stats, and move those to a male if needed. Then I name my male breeders after their key stat (say 111 health for the starter health breeder), and mate it with a ton of clean females; stats do not matter at all for the females, only that they have no mutations.  Because I named the father after its key stat, it is silly obvious when you check the incubator if a desired mutation has occurred - i.e. if the father is named 111 Health, you look for 113 health eggs.  Then when you get a 113 health egg, you raise it up, if male you name it 113 health and it becomes the new health breeder, if female mate with clean male until you have male with stat, and then look for 115 health egg, and so on.  You do this with a separate line of males for each stat, and then when you are done mutating you worry about combining the mutated lines into a male & female with all same useful stats (note stuff like oxygen stat for final male & female snow owl being different is perfectly fine).   
 

[Dreadcthulhu]

Also, as for how the mutation counter works, The paternal counter is simply the father's paternal + maternal counters added together, likewise the maternal counter is the mother's paternal + maternal added together.  The counter also goes up by one when a mutation occurs of course.   The stats themselves are passed on separately.

So if you mate a mutated creature with a non-mutated one, that counter will always get passed, even if the mutated stat itself does not.  As is the case in your picture; the mother has a mutation, and 1 total mutation on her counter, so all of her eggs will show at least 1 maternal mutation, but the egg got the father's lower stat.  What you want to do is mate that female again with a non-mutated male until you have a male with that 113 stat; then he can start your health line.  As note you would want that 113 health male mating with clean females, so pull his mutated mother out of the breeding group.

[DonaldDuck]

10 hours ago, Dreadcthulhu said:

Also, as for how the mutation counter works, The paternal counter is simply the father's paternal + maternal counters added together, likewise the maternal counter is the mother's paternal + maternal added together.  The counter also goes up by one when a mutation occurs of course.   The stats themselves are passed on separately.

So if you mate a mutated creature with a non-mutated one, that counter will always get passed, even if the mutated stat itself does not.  As is the case in your picture; the mother has a mutation, and 1 total mutation on her counter, so all of her eggs will show at least 1 maternal mutation, but the egg got the father's lower stat.  What you want to do is mate that female again with a non-mutated male until you have a male with that 113 stat; then he can start your health line.  As note you would want that 113 health male mating with clean females, so pull his mutated mother out of the breeding group.

So, the mutation counter is ALWAYS passed on, but NOT the stats then. Since the stats is the important one, so it has to be passed on too. 

But one thing I still don't get it, if by chance I'm lucky and finally get the 113 health male in this case, why would he be mated with CLEAN female ? if I mate it with the 113 female I already have, won't I always get 113 hp offspring ? 

I think I have to know the answer to these questions first before I can understand mutations :

- when mating this mutated 113hp female, to a 111hp male, should I expect to get a 115 hp female or a 113 hp male ?  

- If I get a mutated male from 111 hp to 113 hp, and mate it with female I already have, which is the mutated female on hp also from 111 to 113 hp, will the mutation counter says TWO or ONE ? Both of the parents are mutated. But only ONE mutation on hp ,both  from 111 to 113

 

 

--

 

I just mated my pair again, and it still came out 111. Is it 2.5% chance ? It might never come out with that low chance or takes forever with one pair lol, I might as well ditch this mutated female since I haven't gotten a pair with identical stats.

[GrumpyBear]

21 minutes ago, DonaldDuck said:

So, the mutation counter is ALWAYS passed on, but NOT the stats then. Since the stats is the important one, so it has to be passed on too. 

But one thing I still don't get it, if by chance I'm lucky and finally get the 113 health male in this case, why would he be mated with CLEAN female ? if I mate it with the 113 female, won't I always get 113 hp offspring ? 

 

--

 

I just mated my pair again, and it still came out 111. Is it 2.5% chance ? It might never come out with that low chance or takes forever with one pair lol, I might as well ditch this mutated female since I haven't gotten a pair with identical stats.

If you use dirty(with mutation count > 0) females , you waste valuable space on the mutation counter.  You have 20 until the progeny can no longer provide future mutations.  If you mate your +6 mutation hp stud to females that all have +5 counts, your babies will come in at 12 when you get a lucky break.  Now you only have 8 more spaces left to use until you lock their chances of mutating.  Wasted 5 to get 1.

 

The counter is like the turnstile going into an amusement park.  It counts when mutations go in, it doesn't keep track of where they go or if they leave.  It is completely independent of where the mutation comes from, it could be the same +2 that you just mated w/ a sibling to get +4, do that again and you get +8.  All the stats remain the same, but the counter goes up , up , and away!

[DonaldDuck]

22 minutes ago, GrumpyBear said:

If you use, dirty females , you waste valuable space on the mutation counter.  You have 20 until the progeny can no longer provide future mutations.  If you mate your +6 mutation to hp stud to females that all have +5, your babies will come in at 12 when you get a lucky break.  Now you only have 8 more spaces left to use until you lock their chances of mutating.  Wasted 5 to get 1.

 

The counter is like the turnstile going into an amusement park.  It counts when mutations go in, it doesn't keep track of where they go or if they leave.

So if a mutated parent (female in this case) with ONE mut counter, is mated with a male also a ONE mut counter, the offspring will have TWO muts  while only getting ONE stats (from 111hp to 113hp in this case) ?? 

So mutation MUST be done with a clean opposite gender, until it stacks to max (20) ? But in the end after that how do I get an offspring with 20x mutation and 40 stats if it's not mated with the same mutated opposite ? Because in my case with the screenshots above, the male offspring didn't get the 2 stat points, only the counter.

Kinda hard to explain since we have to be on the same page to understand each other's points. Because tbh I don't understand what that +6 , +5, 12  etc. 🙄 Are you giving another scenario or cmiiw.

---

This whole mutation mechanc is so not intuitive, it records mutation but not actually get the stats, and unclear even when trying to understand it. 🥴

I even thought a mutation was a separate +2 (1mut) to +40 (20mut) autostack that would always be added to the offspring.

Guess I'll have ditch this mutated dinoes out from my breeding lines until I get two pairs of parents with same stats and go from there. Mutation happening in the middle of stacking stats seems like lowering the chance of getting a good offspring since the mutated one might also inherit the lacking stats if both parents not same stats.

[GrumpyBear]

WHat happens at 20 is, you lose 1 of 2 parents giving your mutation.  Your chances are now cut in half.   They aren't gone completely.  YOu can then use any female with 19 or less in count and keep getting that next mutation.   You just can only get it from the female and no longer from the parent with the higher stat to begin with. 

Before mutations, the only bonus to having both parents w/ the matching high stat is that first mutation.  After that 1st one, there's no added benefit.   

 

There's a way around this handicap, but its tedious.

[DonaldDuck]

11 hours ago, WitchesTwex said:

https://ark.wiki.gg/wiki/Breeding look at section 'Stats of the Offspring', that will explain Everything! 
Good luck!

I already understand the stats of the offspring when breeding, but not when mutated, why the offspring of my mutated snow owl also says 1 mutation but not getting the mutation stats. That's where I'm still confused. But Dreadcthulhu above said that is just the mutation counter and always inherited.

[DonaldDuck]

Here is another case of mutation on damage for rex, I have a female offspring that inherits 93 melee but mutated to 95.

but then I tamed a male rex with 99 melee.

 

In this case, is the offspring with mutated 93to95 obsolete and useless ?? because it is now trumped with a better/higher melee which is 99 (male rex) ? Or can I expect to get a 103dmg ? Since I read mutation can apply to any of the parent stats, higher is 99 here then +2 =101 and maybe it has its own mutation and be 103.

 

Spoiler

Here's the pool of my rexes if needs illustration, but should be enough with just texts above. I put this in spoiler because it might get confusing seeing unfamiliar numbers from other ppl. >_< It's from Ark Smart Breeder so probably familiar but ppl have different habits in naming so there's that.

The mutated female offspring is named Rexona from the table above (line #2), as you can see it has 95 damage, while the parents are Rex Luthor (line #3 from bottom) with 84 damage, and Rexina (line #5) with 93 damage. 

But then I tamed Rexon, with 99 damage, and he trumps the mutated 93 to 95 melee damage. If I mate Rexon and Rexona, can the offspring get 103 ??? Since it already has mutation but I read it can be inherited by any of the parent stats which is 99+2 then plus another mutation +2 so come out 103.

 

 

 

[Campi]

2 hours ago, DonaldDuck said:

I already understand the stats of the offspring when breeding, but not when mutated, why the offspring of my mutated snow owl also says 1 mutation but not getting the mutation stats. That's where I'm still confused. But Dreadcthulhu above said that is just the mutation counter and always inherited.

When the mother has a mutation counter of 1 and the father has a mutation counter of 0 the child will always have a mutation counter of 1 (or higher if a new mutation comes in). This is independent on if the child inherits the stats from the mother or the father.
Example:

Father: 111HP with 0 mutation counter
Mother 113HP with 1 mutation counter

1st Child: 111HP with 1 mutation counter (fathers HP went into child) (mutation counter is sum of father+mother)
2nd Child: 113HP with 1 mutation counter (mothers HP went into child) (mutation counter is sum of father+mother)
3rd Child: 115HP with 2 mutation counter (mothers HP went into child and mutated) (mutation counter is sum of father+mother + 1 for the new mutation)
4th Child: 113HP with 2 mutation counter (fathers HP went into child and mutated) (mutation counter is sum of father+mother + 1 for the new mutation)

[Campi]

2 hours ago, DonaldDuck said:

Here is another case of mutation on damage for rex, I have a female offspring that inherits 93 melee but mutated to 95.

but then I tamed a male rex with 99 melee.

 

In this case, is the offspring with mutated 93to95 obsolete and useless ?? because it is now trumped with a better/higher melee which is 99 (male rex) ? Or can I expect to get a 103dmg ? Since I read mutation can apply to any of the parent stats, higher is 99 here then +2 =101 and maybe it has its own mutation and be 103.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Here's the pool of my rexes if needs illustration, but should be enough with just texts above. I put this in spoiler because it might get confusing seeing unfamiliar numbers from other ppl. >_< It's from Ark Smart Breeder so probably familiar but ppl have different habits in naming so there's that.

The mutated female offspring is named Rexona from the table above (line #2), as you can see it has 95 damage, while the parents are Rex Luthor (line #3 from bottom) with 84 damage, and Rexina (line #5) with 93 damage. 

But then I tamed Rexon, with 99 damage, and he trumps the mutated 93 to 95 melee damage. If I mate Rexon and Rexona, can the offspring get 103 ??? Since it already has mutation but I read it can be inherited by any of the parent stats which is 99+2 then plus another mutation +2 so come out 103.

 

 

 

The game does not keep track if a specific stat is mutated. It only keeps track of the mutation counter in general.

So for your example it only knows your mutated female has 95 but not that this originates as 93+2. Following this if you now breed it with the 99 it cannot apply +2 on 99 - the only possible outcomes for that baby without a new mutation happening is eighter 95 or 99 depending on if it gets the fathers 99 or the mothers 95 stat.

What you read about that a mutation can apply to any of the parents stats means that if that baby has a new mutation it can end up as 97 or 101 depending on if the mothers or the fathers stat is the one that was inherited and got the +2 applied from this new mutation.

[DonaldDuck]

48 minutes ago, Campi said:

When the mother has a mutation counter of 1 and the father has a mutation counter of 0 the child will always have a mutation counter of 1 (or higher if a new mutation comes in). This is independent on if the child inherits the stats from the mother or the father.
Example:

Father: 111HP with 0 mutation counter
Mother 113HP with 1 mutation counter

1st Child: 111HP with 1 mutation counter (fathers HP went into child) (mutation counter is sum of father+mother)
2nd Child: 113HP with 1 mutation counter (mothers HP went into child) (mutation counter is sum of father+mother)
3rd Child: 115HP with 2 mutation counter (mothers HP went into child and mutated) (mutation counter is sum of father+mother + 1 for the new mutation)
4th Child: 113HP with 2 mutation counter (fathers HP went into child and mutated) (mutation counter is sum of father+mother + 1 for the new mutation)

Thanks, this really clears the confusion. So the 113 actually already became the mother's BASE HP. I am just unlucky getting the 111 twice in a row then, because the father is a clean one in my case and is 111. 

I think I get it now. If I have both mutated parents on hp (111 to 113) so male parent 113 hp 1 mut and female parent 113 hp also 1 mut, that is actually a loss, because the counter is TWO mutations, but only get the stats from ONE mutation. That's why the mate has to be a CLEAN one. Hmm...it makes sense now.

 

 

[DonaldDuck]

20 minutes ago, Campi said:

The game does not keep track if a specific stat is mutated. It only keeps track of the mutation counter in general.

So for your example it only knows your mutated female has 95 but not that this originates as 93+2. Following this if you now breed it with the 99 it cannot apply +2 on 99 - the only possible outcomes for that baby without a new mutation happening is eighter 95 or 99 depending on if it gets the fathers 99 or the mothers 95 stat.

What you read about that a mutation can apply to any of the parents stats means that if that baby has a new mutation it can end up as 97 or 101 depending on if the mothers or the fathers stat is the one that was inherited and got the +2 applied from this new mutation.

I see, so if I get a better rex, the mutation becomes obsolete in this case. That's why it's imperative to do mutation after done with stacking high stats.

Ok I get it now but cmiiw.

[Campi]

Excactly. Thats the reason people first get the highest stats they can find in the wild and then start mutations on those since its "time wasted" if you mutate a stat from 30 to 40 and then find a new tame with 45 base.

In regards to having one side as a "clean" one - technically it doesn't have to be a 100% clean one just one with a counter of less than 20. This is due to the fact that if both parents are below a counter of 20 you have a 5% chance on each egg to get a mutation, if only one parent is below 20 you have a 2.5% chance and if both go over 20 you have a 0% chance to get a new mutation.

People just tend to go with a clean one due to the fact that if you have a male with 12 mutations and a female with 12 mutations you still have a 5% chance for new mutations but the child will already have 24 (or 25 with a mutation) so the next round will be a 2.5% chance since you'll breed the 25 counter with the old 12 counter. If you keep the female clean the next generation will only have a counter of 13 so you can still have 7 more generations with the 5% chance until you have to go with 2.5% which just makes the process "faster" - the end result will be the same it just takes longer if you get the male over the 20 count before you actually have 20 mutations on the wanted stat by keeping the females clean at least for the first 20 mutations. But as soon as the males counter is over 20 anyways you just have to make sure the female is anything from 0-19 on its mutation counter and you are good.

[DonaldDuck]

45 minutes ago, Campi said:

Excactly. Thats the reason people first get the highest stats they can find in the wild and then start mutations on those since its "time wasted" if you mutate a stat from 30 to 40 and then find a new tame with 45 base.

In regards to having one side as a "clean" one - technically it doesn't have to be a 100% clean one just one with a counter of less than 20. This is due to the fact that if both parents are below a counter of 20 you have a 5% chance on each egg to get a mutation, if only one parent is below 20 you have a 2.5% chance and if both go over 20 you have a 0% chance to get a new mutation.

People just tend to go with a clean one due to the fact that if you have a male with 12 mutations and a female with 12 mutations you still have a 5% chance for new mutations but the child will already have 24 (or 25 with a mutation) so the next round will be a 2.5% chance since you'll breed the 25 counter with the old 12 counter. If you keep the female clean the next generation will only have a counter of 13 so you can still have 7 more generations with the 5% chance until you have to go with 2.5% which just makes the process "faster" - the end result will be the same it just takes longer if you get the male over the 20 count before you actually have 20 mutations on the wanted stat by keeping the females clean at least for the first 20 mutations. But as soon as the males counter is over 20 anyways you just have to make sure the female is anything from 0-19 on its mutation counter and you are good.

Chance of mutation is 5% because of the patrilineal + matrilineal ? 

I still cannot chew that information regarding the number of mutations happening, I'll keep a note and read it again at a later time once I know more or get there.

Anyway, thanks again, this really helps me seeing how the mutation mechanic works. I will ask more here or make a new thread if I bump into something I don't understand.

 

[Dreadcthulhu]

When the game creates a baby, it first pulls the stats (well levels into each stat) from one parent or the other.  Then it checks to see if each parent can generate a mutation separately; if the parent is under 20 mutations on the counter, it has a chance to trigger a mutation, bumping a stat by +2.  Both parents being under 20 means twice the chance of getting a mutation.

[DonaldDuck]

I have a male Argentavis with weight mutation. (Matrilineal 1/20 , Patrilineal  0/20)

I also have a female Argentavis that also mutates on its weight (Matrilineal 0/20, Patrilineal 1/20) , thjis female is mutated separately not the offspring of that male.

Out of curiousity I mated them and now it has 2 mutations (Mat 1/20, Pat 1/20) but only ONE weight mutation. So it's wasting the mutation chance for mating with a not clean one (unmutated), unless its mutation is on something else like hp/dmg? 

Weight was 112 before mutation.

 

Now if I want to have full mutation on ONLY WEIGHT for both mat/pat, then I have to mate this mutated male with clean females, right ? BUT, the clean females are ofc only has 112 weight. So it is really adding the chance of a fail offspring if it inherites the 112 even if it has weight mutation. So that decreases the chance to the already low mutation chance?

If this male produces a female offspring then it will also inherits the counter (mat 1) , and if I mate this female with the male (also mat 1), will they produce an offspring with mut counter MATRILINEAL 2 ? If yes then there is no way to always inherits 114 and mutates to 116, so even if it mutates on weight again it still has the chance of inheriting the 112 and mutates on it to still be 114, not 116 ?

(I have three of that CLEAN females (Ma 684 v1) but its weight is 112.) 

 

[GrumpyBear]

You don't get to combine mutations from 2 separate animals mutating the same stat.  The counter and the stats are totally independent once a stat is mutated. 

5 hours ago, DonaldDuck said:

I have a male Argentavis with weight mutation. (Matrilineal 1/20 , Patrilineal  0/20)

I also have a female Argentavis that also mutates on its weight (Matrilineal 0/20, Patrilineal 1/20) , thjis female is mutated separately not the offspring of that male.

Out of curiousity I mated them and now it has 2 mutations (Mat 1/20, Pat 1/20) but only ONE weight mutation. So it's wasting the mutation chance for mating with a not clean one (unmutated), unless its mutation is on something else like hp/dmg? 

Weight was 112 before mutation.

 

Now if I want to have full mutation on ONLY WEIGHT for both mat/pat, then I have to mate this mutated male with clean females, right ? BUT, the clean females are ofc only has 112 weight. So it is really adding the chance of a fail offspring if it inherites the 112 even if it has weight mutation. So that decreases the chance to the already low mutation chance?

If this male produces a female offspring then it will also inherits the counter (mat 1) , and if I mate this female with the male (also mat 1), will they produce an offspring with mut counter MATRILINEAL 2 ? If yes then there is no way to always inherits 114 and mutates to 116, so even if it mutates on weight again it still has the chance of inheriting the 112 and mutates on it to still be 114, not 116 ?

(I have three of that CLEAN females (Ma 684 v1) but its weight is 112.) 

 

I mentioned in the past, matching stats for parents only benefits 1 time.  It only helps the very first mutation.  After that, it doesn't help at all.  

 

1. The baby has a 55% chance of inheriting the best possible stat each category separately. This benefit comes from the mutated stud.
2.   BOTH parents being under 20 count mutations, have a 50% chance of being the parent who supplies a mutation (50% + 50% = 100% ) - this is cut down to only 1 x 50% chance= 50% chance if 1 parent is 20 or more on count 100
3. The breeders being clean with no mutations gives the benefit of not wasting a valuable space in the under 20 counter.
4. You could simply start using 250 breeders at a time and stop worrying about the math.  You will end up with a success almost every time you mate if you do that.  If you up that to about 466 breeders, you could almost guarantee a male baby with the correct mutation on the correct stat supplied by the correct parent.
5. if you want to not worry about the 20 count limit, start mating matching brother and sister dinos w/ your highest count.  2+2=4, 4+4=8,8+8=16........~1.1 billiion + ~1.1 billion = broken counter, mutations unlocked. 42 generations from 1+1 i think, somewhere around that. 
6. There is a possibility of getting up to 3 mutations from a mating.  You could see  a baby get +2 patrilineal and +1 matrilineal added to their counts in a single mating.   For the purposes of serious breeding - these are usually just trash produced during the process of reaching the finish line on 253-254 points melee.  The odds all 3 mutations are melee ones is laughable.

[DonaldDuck]

3 hours ago, GrumpyBear said:

You don't get to combine mutations from 2 separate animals mutating the same stat.  The counter and the stats are totally independent once a stat is mutated. 

I mentioned in the past, matching stats for parents only benefits 1 time.  It only helps the very first mutation.  After that, it doesn't help at all.  

 

1. The baby has a 55% chance of inheriting the best possible stat each category separately. This benefit comes from the mutated stud.
2.   BOTH parents being under 20 count mutations, have a 50% chance of being the parent who supplies a mutation (50% + 50% = 100% ) - this is cut down to only 1 x 50% chance= 50% chance if 1 parent is 20 or more on count 100
3. The breeders being clean with no mutations gives the benefit of not wasting a valuable space in the under 20 counter.
4. You could simply start using 250 breeders at a time and stop worrying about the math.  You will end up with a success almost every time you mate if you do that.  If you up that to about 466 breeders, you could almost guarantee a male baby with the correct mutation on the correct stat supplied by the correct parent.
5. if you want to not worry about the 20 count limit, start mating matching brother and sister dinos w/ your highest count.  2+2=4, 4+4=8,8+8=16........~1.1 billiion + ~1.1 billion = broken counter, mutations unlocked. 42 generations from 1+1 i think, somewhere around that. 
6. There is a possibility of getting up to 3 mutations from a mating.  You could see  a baby get +2 patrilineal and +1 matrilineal added to their counts in a single mating.   For the purposes of serious breeding - these are usually just trash produced during the process of reaching the finish line on 253-254 points melee.  The odds all 3 mutations are melee ones is laughable.

Yes Campi alrady mentioned that earlier in this thread, but since this is my first time doing mutation seriously, I mated them for confirmation about the added counter from both parents. Probably also doesn't matter whether its the offspring of the mutated parent or mutated separately, in the end a mutated parent MUST be mated with a clean dino. The problem with that is both parents can't have same stats, because the mutated one ofc have the +2 benefit, and if I try to inherit that +2 stats benefit to an opposite gender, it will also inherit the counter and wasting chance.

Using 250 breeders that's kinda like beating number with number lol. With that kind of number won't matter whether it's already past 20 mutations because it's like bruteforcing the mutation to happen. That must be why we have server cap dinoes reached quite soon before, but now we have cryo.

Anyway, do ppl or maybe yourself really use 250 breeders ? I thought about using 10 or maybe 20. We don't need to imprint them, right ? Since when still under mutation they're not final yet.

 

 

 

 

 

[DonaldDuck]

So I have 2 mutations on wanted stats on a rex, hp and damage. BUT, it came out a FEMALE. Do I have to keep breeding this female with a CLEAN male until I produce a male that inherits both mutated stats ? Because 1 female is just one egg, while if male can mate several females.

 

 

 

[GrumpyBear]

2 hours ago, DonaldDuck said:

So I have 2 mutations on wanted stats on a rex, hp and damage. BUT, it came out a FEMALE. Do I have to keep breeding this female with a CLEAN male until I produce a male that inherits both mutated stats ? Because 1 female is just one egg, while if male can mate several females.

 

 

 

I usually just do both, I raise the one I get.  But while that's happening, I go ahead and rebreed and try again.  If you get a male egg before that female finishes, you saved time.  If a male never shows, you have an option to clone that female a few times if that doesn't get a male egg the first try.  Each step has costs in time or time+element.  In the end, when going for 75 - 100 total mutations in a stat,  you pretty much do everything.    

It pays off in the long run to just keep breeding and keeping only males (assuming you run 250-450 breeders).  If you don't run lots of breeders, you definitely just keep what you get and move forwards. 

If you want this process over and done w/ as fast as possible, you run efficiently and you start stacking mutations in the counter in order to break the counter in 42 generations.   Sometime after you begin this, you are able to source a suitable point value to begin mutating from(you are past this point anyways now. so start now if you have the patience to add it into your routine).  If you run 250+ breeders, you will probably keep pace generation for generation.  You will reach 20 mutations before you get that counter rolled if you did that.  If that's the case, you will see why you are rolling the counter by the 22nd mutation. 

 

To be honest, this whole race to finish is a journey you could run slowly or fast.  You don't need max level dinos to complete anything in this game, they just make it really really easy.  This process was mostly born out of competition on official pve.  People raced to have bragging rights on who had the highest melee.  This race is irrelevant to most players.  We started around 48-54 points most of the time for melee stats.  If you are over 100 points in melee to begin with, you probably don't even need mutations for most of the game.

[DonaldDuck]

1 hour ago, GrumpyBear said:

I usually just do both, I raise the one I get.  But while that's happening, I go ahead and rebreed and try again.  If you get a male egg before that female finishes, you saved time.  If a male never shows, you have an option to clone that female a few times if that doesn't get a male egg the first try.  Each step has costs in time or time+element.  In the end, when going for 75 - 100 total mutations in a stat,  you pretty much do everything.    

It pays off in the long run to just keep breeding and keeping only males (assuming you run 250-450 breeders).  If you don't run lots of breeders, you definitely just keep what you get and move forwards. 

If you want this process over and done w/ as fast as possible, you run efficiently and you start stacking mutations in the counter in order to break the counter in 42 generations.   Sometime after you begin this, you are able to source a suitable point value to begin mutating from(you are past this point anyways now. so start now if you have the patience to add it into your routine).  If you run 250+ breeders, you will probably keep pace generation for generation.  You will reach 20 mutations before you get that counter rolled if you did that.  If that's the case, you will see why you are rolling the counter by the 22nd mutation. 

 

To be honest, this whole race to finish is a journey you could run slowly or fast.  You don't need max level dinos to complete anything in this game, they just make it really really easy.  This process was mostly born out of competition on official pve.  People raced to have bragging rights on who had the highest melee.  This race is irrelevant to most players.  We started around 48-54 points most of the time for melee stats.  If you are over 100 points in melee to begin with, you probably don't even need mutations for most of the game.

How do you feed all that 250 babies at once ? It is easier now with maewing but still 250 rexes take a lot of space. I will probably start with 10-20 and see from there whether I can manage them, it's my first time doing this lol, I usually just play casually and leave everything to decay once it becomes a chore, but I'm trying now before Ark 2 comes out.

 

Oh and do you imprint them all ? Since they're not final yet and still going for mutations.

[GrumpyBear]

9 hours ago, DonaldDuck said:

How do you feed all that 250 babies at once ? It is easier now with maewing but still 250 rexes take a lot of space. I will probably start with 10-20 and see from there whether I can manage them, it's my first time doing this lol, I usually just play casually and leave everything to decay once it becomes a chore, but I'm trying now before Ark 2 comes out.

 

Oh and do you imprint them all ? Since they're not final yet and still going for mutations.

You can do 1 of 2 things, you can use incubators.  Incubators will tell you exactly what the stats are, making it easy to dump the bad eggs and keep only the winners.   

Before incubators, the easiest way to spot them was to hatch all at once, and look at their levels.  All my breeders matched my stud for all stats except the target stat.  This led to me being able to spot all the mutations just by looking at their levels.  

Example - level 1 breeders, 0 in every stat |  stud matches zero points in every stat except melee.  If melee was 70 points, 

Babies come out as level 1, level 3, level 71, or level 73.   The only ones I would want to look at are the level 73s.   That was the easiest way to do this before incubators.  Now incubators make it possible to find out that info before hatching, but it does take a little more work than just laying the eggs out and letting them all hatch at once.

 

The way to keep doing it the old way, you can take a maewing and load with meat, then leave it unclaimed by the pile of eggs you hatch.  The unclaimed maewing will feed the unclaimed babies(learned this from @Joebl0w13 on the forums here).  You could then let all the babies just die after you go and pull out the winners.  Reclaim your maewing once you are done and the unclaimed ones will just die in place.

I had a/c units in the middle so I could hatch below and above.  This way I could fit 130 eggs above and 130 below.

Now I use incubators, because dealing with wyvern babies that can last hours before dying is not that much fun.

How to take care of claimed babies you don't want to keep...

 

[Pipinghot]

13 hours ago, DonaldDuck said:

I usually just play casually and leave everything to decay once it becomes a chore, but I'm trying now before Ark 2 comes out.

If your goal is to complete ARK before ARK2 comes out you're probably wasting a bunch of time trying to have super-mutated dinos, making this harder on yourself than you need to (unless you're enjoying the process, in which case ignore me. ).

You can do all of the boss fights (when on normal settings) with dinos that have 36-40 points (at time of birth, plus XP levels) in whichever stats are important for that particular species (which is to say, melee for combat animals, food for daeodons, you get the idea. Having said that, I saw in your OP that you're on a private server with higher level wild dinos, so of course you would need to adjust your decisions on number of levels based on how much your server is boosted, but once you have wild tames with numbers that are good enough for your server the same basic logic applies.

Once you have tamed a 6-18 animals of any species (depending on how lucky you get) you will almost certainly have stats that are good enough to breed a bloodline for boss fights. During the process of breeding them together to create a good bloodline you'll get a couple of beneficial mutations, and that's all you need. Just as an example, on my private server we have a tribe of 6, we tame animals until we have 36+ in the important stats and start breeding. By the time we're done with a bloodline, depending on our luck, we end up with 36-42 in the important stats, and that has been good enough to do boss fights on each map we've done. We start each map from scratch, tame a whole new set of animals, do the breeding, do the caves + boss fights, then move on to the next map (this also means we can only do boss fights with animals that are native to that map, we don't import anything).

If you're having fun working on mutations then, by all means, mutate as much as you want. The point of a game is to have fun, after all, but don't think that you need a pile of mutations to succeed. By the time you breed a good bloodline and then imprint the final generation (and of course good saddles) you'll have plenty of power to beat the bosses.